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BUSINESS / JAPAN-U.S. SYMPOSIUMS
Dec 8, 2008

Obama victory opens door to broader relations

The election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president offers opportunities for broader cooperation between Japan and the United States, which focused on the military aspects of the alliance during the eight years of the Bush administration, experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 7, 2008

Graduates' security goes to pot

Last week, a 25-year-old University of Tokyo graduate was arrested for allegedly posting death threats on his blog. The police say that the man, who has been unemployed since graduating from Japan's most prestigious university, had written that he would kill members of the education ministry for misleading...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 7, 2008

A bend in time, disengagement and the life of the mind

BIRNBAUM: A Novel of Inner Space, by Michael Hoffman. Printed Matter Press, 2008, 321 pp., ¥2,000 (paper) In writing about the process involved in the creation of this novel, Michael Hoffman observed that "Often as I wrote, I had no idea where this was going." This sounds a little like the literary...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2008

Tamogami essay fits 'outrageous' conspiracy theory mold

As a board member of The Academy of Outrageous Books, Shunichi Karasawa sees parallels between the controversial essay written by sacked Air Self-Defense Force chief Toshio Tamogami, an apologist for Japan's wartime aggression, and classic "outrageous" conspiracy theories.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2008

Politicians failing to engage youth

One of the oldest rules in politics the world over is that young people stay away in droves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2008

Shonen Knife "Super Group"

I have a very old friend who's always hated Osaka rock ambassadresses Shonen Knife. He thinks they're not a serious band — but he's missing the point. When the world around us is gray and dark, and the news talks of terrorists and financial depression, what we need are songs about slugs, deer biscuits...
EDITORIALS
Dec 4, 2008

Stellar U.S. security team

Whatever doubts may have existed about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy should be put to rest since he announced his national security team. The group is notable for its experience and levelheadedness. Perhaps most significant is the self-confidence the selections reveal: Mr. Obama...
Reader Mail
Dec 4, 2008

A lot of outlaws in the making

I urge The Japan Times to publish further details of the recently passed Japanese law banning "survival knives." If the law does indeed ban, without further qualification, all two-sided knives with blades longer than 5 cm, it bans most German and French chef knives, Swiss Army knives, Chinese cleavers,...
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2008

Aso to break with Koizumi reforms

With the economy in recession and public approval ratings low, Prime Minister Taro Aso signaled Wednesday that Japan must depart from the reformist fiscal policies pursued by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his successors.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2008

Failed governance allowed attacks

MUMBAI — In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic. This netherworld, patrolled and nourished by criminals who operate a vast black-market economy, has bred, in Mumbai, a community...
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2008

Moving back to socialism?

The "ism" enthusiasts are out in force again. These are the analysts and commentators who see everything in strictly ideological terms of socialism versus capitalism, more state control versus less state control. Just now they are all convinced that the pendulum is swinging toward state control, that...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 2, 2008

Back to the baths: Otaru revisited

The story is familiar to regular readers of Zeit Gist. Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen, originally from America, was living in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and had heard of the Yunohana public bath's policy of denying entry to foreigners. In 1999, media in tow, he decided to put that onsen's policy...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 2, 2008

Soka Gakkai keeps religious, political machine humming

What do movie star Orlando Bloom, who plays young pirate Will Turner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, R&B diva Tina Turner and Shunsuke Nakamura, an ace midfielder for Scottish soccer team Celtic, have in common?
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2008

Look at the brighter side of the financial crisis

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — One good way to counter depression (of the emotional and of the otherwise kind) is to emphasize the positive (of the imagined or otherwise kind).
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2008

Top court notifying lay judge candidates

Over the next few days, some 295,000 Japanese can expect to find a large envelope from the Supreme Court in their mailboxes with the following notice: "This is to inform you that, as a result of a lottery, you are listed as a prospective lay judge of the court (between May 21 and Dec. 31, 2009)."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2008

Defense of an artist who had lived as a slave

NEW YORK — Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Europe. Liberated from the complexity of knowing too much about the cruel past, the young people of Eastern Europe's postcommunist generation seem uninterested in what their parents and grandparents endured.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 28, 2008

Lisa Loeb

Now that it's almost December, there can be only one thing on the minds of kids around Japan: Um, summer camp?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2008

'252 — Seizonsha Ari'

Disaster pics have been big in Japan since the days of "Godzilla," the 1954 classic whose title monster served as a rubber-suited symbol for everything from earthquakes (that stomp) and fires (that breath) to atomic bombings (that city-wrecking power).
COMMENTARY
Nov 27, 2008

Time to get tough with Somali pirates

On one side are the eight navies, the world's largest shipping companies, the rich Gulf states that need to get their oil to market, and the great powers, whose commerce depends heavily on the shipping lanes around the Horn of Africa. On the other side are a few thousand Somali pirates in small boats...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2008

Sex slave victims press for apology

Victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery were joined by international activists and lawmakers Tuesday to demand what they call a proper apology and compensation from the government for its past atrocities.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic